Bed Bug Complaint Unfounded

A viewer called the Eyewitness News tipline after finding
a
bedbug in her room at a local motel. She said when she
brought the bug to the attention of management, she was met with a
chilly reception.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, stayed the night at
the E-Z 8 Motel on Buck Owens Boulevard on Dec. 17. When she woke
up in the morning, she found the bug in the bed.

"It was just right there on the sheets, crawling," the woman
said. "So we put it in a bag and went to the front desk, and we
spoke with the general manager, and he basically said that we put
it there and didn't take us seriously at all."

The woman said she did a little research on bedbugs and became
concerned that when she left the hotel she would be taking the
pests with her.

According to chief environmental health specialist Brian Pitts
with the Kern County Health Department, her concerns are well
founded.

"Bedbugs travel with people. That's how they are disseminated.
They get on people's clothes, they get on their luggage and they
are not all that unusual in hotel rooms," Pitts said.

In addition to the bug, the woman said she spotted mattresses
stacked in the motel's parking lot near a dumpster. When she asked
the hotel staff why they were there, the staff reportedly told her
they were old and needed to be thrown away. The mattresses were not
part of a bedbug infestation, they said.

Motel management declined to go on camera for an interview, but
guests are speaking out in defense of the establishment. "Chris"
travels from the Midwest to California for work and has been
staying at the E-Z 8 on-and-off for 14 years with no problems.

"No, no never any pests like that, no," Chris said. "It's clean,
it's well-managed and all I can say is the management and the
employees really care about their jobs from what I've seen."

Pitts said hotels aren't the only places bedbugs can be found
and warns that movie theaters are another venue for the bugs to set
up shop. While bedbugs can be frustrating, it's one of the
challenges that comes along with managing a hotel.

"For any hotel owner, this is something that they have to worry
about. Their rooms could be perfectly clean tonight, then, just
depending on luck, if the people are carrying bedbugs, then they
can hop off luggage or hop off people, and then they are in that
room," Pitts said.

Management at the E-Z 8 said they take any suspicion of bedbugs
very seriously.

The Kern County Health Department said it will investigate the
motel, and Eyewitness News will follow up with the department on
what it finds.